Work by Tim van Caubergh
Mystery
Curiosity is a strange thing. We seem to be driven by a force that needs to make sense of everything. To find answers to questions we wrestle with. But how do we know that we are even asking the right questions? Is this a healthy or an unhealthy curiosity? And who is to say so anyway?
Curiosity
We always seem to be curious about what is behind doors and hatches, what might be concealed in boxes and drawers. What you find behind a door or in a box can be expected or unexpected. Really, they are all potential portals to other times, environments and even worlds. Sometimes you hope to find something and other times not finding what you expect brings relief. But one thing is for certain, it can set or change the mood.
Curiosity remains, it survives the most terrible of discoveries and continues to seek even after it has been more than rewarded. A locked door or box begs to be opened; we need to see what was so precious that it had to be protected. So why do we ask what is in there? Are we even taking enough time to formulate a question? Or are we just hard-wired to open containers?
Shelling
Is this an ancient survival tactic? Opening nuts, seashells and eggs in our hunt for food? Now that food more or less presents itself and often prepacked in ways that you can see the contents without even opening a packet, what are we to do?
The urge to open and discover has to be fed too; if it cannot be disengaged, we must console it. Perhaps it is just one of life’s mysteries? Perhaps it is because we have not worked out what question we should be asking yet? Have we evolved from seekers of nutrition to seekers of mystery? Perhaps this is the best thing for curiosity?
For it to remain a mystery.